The Daytona 500 is the biggest race in NASCAR, and it’s one of the few races every year where every driver feels they have a legitimate chance to snatch a win away. However, winning the Daytona 500 does not guarantee a good season, and we take a look at how Daytona 500 winners have fared in recent years.
Below is a chart that shows the season-long performance of Daytona 500 winners. As can be seen. it truly is a mixed bag of results.
Points Standings and Championships
The average final points position of a Daytona 500 winner is 10.1. 11 of the 24 winners (46%) in this time frame finished worse than 10th in the points standings. That means that more than half of the drivers who have won the Daytona 500 go on to have at least moderately good seasons.
Only 2 Daytona 500 winners have gone on to win the Championship. Both of those years were Jimmie Johnson in 2006 and 2013. In the Playoff era, Denny Hamlin is the only Daytona 500 winner to make the Championship 4, and he did so in 2019 and 2020.
Getting Back to Victory Lane
As far as getting back to victory lane, 9 of 24 winners (37.5%), did not win another race throughout the season. That means that most drivers did end up winning another race throughout the season. However, there have been some long dry spells following a Daytona 500 win.
Of those 9 winners, not including 2023 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kurt Busch and Michael Waltrip are the only drivers who returned to Victory Lane the season after their Daytona 500 win. Kevin Harvick (2007 winner) and Ryan Newman (2008 winner) did not win another race until 2010. Trevor Bayne and Austin Cindric have never won another Cup Series race. Austin Dillon had to wait until 2020, and Michael McDowell captured his next checkered flag in 2023.
Recent Trends
Daytona 500 winners have been particularly unlucky in recent years. Since Kurt Busch’s win in 2017, 5 of 7 (71%) of Daytona 500 winners have finished 12th or worse in the final standings. Denny Hamlin is the only one to buck that trend in 2019 and 2020.
No other driver except for Hamlin has even made the Round of 8 since that time. Austin Cindric is the only driver to make it past the Round of 16, meaning that 4 of 7 (57%) Daytona 500 winners have been bounced in the first round since 2017.
Top-10 Finishes
Do drivers who win the Daytona 500 at least finish up front? The current average is 15 top-10s per season, which is not bad, but not great either. As far as how many drivers hit that mark, q4
Again, it’s the same hit-or-miss situation that we’ve seen with the other trends. It’s not guaranteed that a driver will do great or poorly.
Is there a “Daytona 500 Curse”? In recent years, it would certainly look like it. No driver has won a Championship after winning the Daytona 500 since 2013, but, some drivers have put together some solid seasons after winning it. It truly depends, and it’s more proof that the Daytona 500 is an absolute crapshoot.
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